The invention relates to rain gutters that may be inverted in order to dump accumulated debris.
Since the rain gutter was invented, various attempts have been made to provide a device that would facilitate the cleaning of accumulated debris from gutters. Many of these efforts have centered on rather complicated mechanical linkage systems, examples of which can be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,116,008 and 4,117,635, that are utilized to invert the gutters and cause accumulated debris such as leaves and twigs to fall out. The aforementioned linkage systems, however, are somewhat expensive and generally require the use of a specialized rain gutter. Furthermore, such systems would require much time and effort for installing the devices.
Efforts to reduce the complexity and cost of gutter dumping systems have led to the use of hinged bracket assemblies that permit the gutter to be manually inverted with the use of a long pole-like tool. Examples are seen in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,309,792; 4,311,292; and 4,669,232. U.S. Pat. No. 4,199,121 discloses an invertible rain gutter that requires force to be applied to a plurality of points in order to accomplish the inversion of the rain gutter.
While some of these systems provide structural simplicity, they require fully equipped professional installers to mount them on buildings, including a portable roll-forming machine to form new gutters from aluminum coil stock at each job site. Then the gutters must be attached to the hinge assemblies with either pop-rivets or nuts and bolts.
Furthermore, in order to function properly, these hinge assemblies require a portion of the hinge (or some form of bracket) to pass across the top of the gutter. Otherwise, the gutter would lack the required longitudinal rigidity provided by the standard sleeved 7" nails, normally used to secure the gutter to the fascia. Such brackets, however, create an obstruction for the free fall of debris when the gutter is inverted in order to empty its contents. (See for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,669,232; 4,311,292, 4,309,792 and 4,014,074).
Other examples of inverting gutters are illustrated in the following U.S. Pat. Nos.: 3,037,767; 4,072,285; 4,561,616; 3,616,582; 4,019,290; and 4,413,449.